there are tons of people i used to associate with still posting on twitter, talking about how the art world is sleeping on ai, how ai-critical people are toxic, how its inevitable that ai will be incorporated into all acts of creativity, how the most important thing is to learn these new technologies for your own employability. and also that ai will fix climate change and solve the world's greatest problems and i wonder ... were these people always like this? did i read them wrong? or have they changed? has the ai psychosis got to them? maybe a little bit of both immensely thankful for the different world i'm now part of instead of that one. i do worry about how most of my "work contacts" are from that old awful one though. seems like i'm getting some good new work contacts for longer term stuff, but might take a while to fill up to the same size network i had before :) what i do know is that i couldn't look my animator and artist friends in the eye if i went back